The Long-Range War

by Christopher Nuttall

  “I’ll teleport you back to your ship,” Hameeda said. “The LinkShip can handle a place-to-place teleport without a pad.”

  Hoshiko grinned. “I thought that was forbidden.”

  “Not forbidden,” Hameeda said. “Just taboo. And this ship does have enough processing power to make it work without any more risk than the average teleport.”

  “I know,” Hoshiko said. She considered it, briefly. The longer the teleport, the greater the number of signal buffers, the higher the chance of an error that would fatally compromise the matter stream and kill her. She might as well step into a vaporisation chamber. It wouldn’t need to be a big error either. And yet, it would show trust. “Do it, please.”

  The world dissolved into golden light, then reformed. Hoshiko had to smile as she looked around. She’d been teleported straight back into her cabin. Hameeda would have had to send the signal all the way to Defiant, then convince the cruiser to allow the teleport pattern to reform in the cabin instead of on a teleport pad. Even with her access codes, and Hoshiko’s permission, it was an impressive feat. She glanced down at herself, just to make sure that everything was in place, then snorted. The old stories about teleporting mishaps where someone ended up with their partner’s eyes or crossed with an insect were nothing more than old wives’ tales. It was far more likely that a glitch in the matter stream would reduce her to dust.

  Her communicator bleeped. “Admiral,” Yolanda said. “There is an update from the planet for you.”

  “Understood,” Hoshiko said. She brushed down her uniform. “I’m on my way.”

  ***

  Hoshiko had laid a minor bet with herself that the enemy offensive would begin within a week of the fall of Mokpo, which would give them more than enough time to bring a massive amount of firepower to bear on the gravity point. And yet, as the days slowly turned into a week, no enemy attack materialised. She watched the gravity point constantly, ready for anything ... but nothing happened. Her crews were starting to feel the stress too. The waiting was getting them down.

  She paced the decks of her cruiser, inspected the fortresses and discussed contingency plans with her officers that had already been discussed several times before, wishing - deep inside - that something would happen. Boredom was not something she handled well, certainly not when she had no one to turn to for advice or comfort. She almost wished she’d found some kind of companion, someone she could talk to without crossing rank boundaries in a manner that would harm both of their careers. Perhaps she should have pressed for a diplomat to be assigned to the fleet, rather than assuming that they’d be doing nothing apart from fighting to hold the system while grinding the alien fleet into powder. It might have been a mistake.

  It will just have to be endured, she told herself, firmly. And everyone else will have to endure it too.

  She put her crews through a number of simulations, ranging from a mass transit of enemy superdreadnaughts to a steady series of attacks that wore the defences down, asking - time and time again - what the enemy would do when the shit hit the fan. What the hell were they doing? They were going to attack ... they had to attack. She could understand why they’d want to build up their reserves first - their fleet had to be spread out across several star systems - but delay would still cost them dearly. There had been dozens of freighters passing through the system in the last few hours alone, all of which had been denied transit. The Tokomak couldn't leave Apsidal alone indefinitely, could they? They had to recover the gravity point nexus before a large chunk of the interstellar economy fell apart.

  Unless they want to blame us for the chaos, she thought. That does make a certain kind of sense.

  She prowled the decks, attended meetings and projected a veneer of confidence whenever she encountered a reporter. They’d grown very persistent in trying to set up interviews - clearly, they’d grown bored of filing stories about the liberation of Apsidal - and she was running out of excuses. It grated on her, more than she cared to admit. The Admiralty would not be pleased if she managed to avoid all interviews. Citizens might have a right to privacy, but not military officers. And yet, she couldn't allow herself to get distracted. She’d stayed away from VR sims for the same reason.

  “I think the crews just want the waiting to end,” Commodore Yu observed, ten days after the fall of Mokpo. “The Tokomak are taking their sweet time.”

  Hoshiko nodded, savagely. Doctrine - Galactic doctrine - insisted that a thrust down a gravity point chain had to be pushed as far as possible. Giving the enemy time to dig in was almost always a mistake, although she had to admit that assault pods might have evened the odds somewhat. Perhaps that was the delay. The Tokomak fabricators at N-Gann were rushing their own version of the assault pod into mass production. She supposed that made sense. The Tokomak hadn’t seemed to care how many ships they threw into the fire, but even they had to have limits.

  “Or they want to be sure they can take advantage of a crack in our defences,” she said, although she knew the defences past the gravity point were tissue-thin. There were no really powerful defences until Varner itself, a mere fifty light years from Sol. “And they might be bringing up their fleet train.”

  “Or they’re planning something clever,” Commodore Yu said. He rubbed his forehead, testily. “Frankly, Admiral, something is going to blow. There have already been a string of incidents on the lower decks.”

  “It will all be over soon, one way or the other,” Hoshiko said. The Tokomak couldn’t delay forever. Even if they didn’t realise the threat posed by human technology - and the prospect of the human race coming up with a game-changer - they couldn't take the risk of looking weak. Too many of their subject races hated and feared them for that. “They will come - and we will smash them.”

  “Yes, Admiral,” Commodore Yu said. “We do have enough firepower to give them a very hard time, at a place of our choosing. And if we stop them dead, the entire galaxy will see that they can be beaten.”

  Hoshiko nodded. Some of the freighters that had passed through the system were spies, she was certain, although there had been no solid proof. The Admiralty was keen to make it clear that humanity wouldn't do anything to impede interstellar shipping. Quite the opposite, in fact. The Galactic Alliance would banish all the regulations and tech restrictions that had blighted commerce under the Tokomak. It would, she’d been assured, get the interstellar shipping community on their side.

  Alarms started to ring. Hoshiko stood, grabbing her communicator. “Report!”

  “A handful of ships just transited the gravity point,” Yolanda said, crisply. The alarms grew louder. “It’s begun.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “The first wave of ships has been deployed,” the aide said. “They’re jumping now.”

  Neola nodded, impatiently. It had taken longer than she’d wanted to prepare her forces for the decisive engagement, although she knew the delay might have worked in her favour. The timing was a little off, but she hadn’t expected perfection in any case. Only a fool would try to carry out a complex plan on an interstellar scale and expect the timing to work just right.

  “Very good,” she said. The gravity point looked dull on the display. And yet, on the other side, antimatter explosions were devastating the first layers of fixed defences. She could barely imagine the sheer scale of the forces she’d unleashed. And yet ... they weren't enough to win, not on their own. “Ready the second wave to jump.”

  She leaned back in her chair, knowing that - whatever happened - it was going to cost her badly. The humans had had plenty of time, if the reports were to be believed, to establish a formidable defence. Some of her analysts believed the enemy fortresses didn’t exist, that they were nothing more than sensor ghosts, but Neola wasn’t so confident. The humans had adopted a defensive posture that made no sense, unless one assumed the fortresses were real.

  And we’ll find out if they’re real or not when they open fire, she thought. If Tokomak-designed fortresses possessed awesome f
irepower, she had no doubt that human-designed fortresses would do the same. They’ll either tear our ships to pieces or do nothing.

  “The second wave is ready, Your Excellency.” Her aide looked up from his console. “Your orders?”

  Neola smiled, coldly. “Send them through.”

  ***

  “They must be mad,” Yolanda breathed, as forty enemy ships materialised in the middle of the gravity point. A handful interpenetrated and vanished in colossal explosions, but the remainder hastily oriented themselves as the nearest mines streaked towards them. “They practically committed suicide.”

  “They’re expendable,” Hoshiko said, coolly. It was stunning to her too, but she didn't want to show it. Her ancestors had crashed planes into ships in a desperate attempt to stave off inevitable defeat, yet they’d never expended so many ships so casually. It was a grim reminder, if she’d needed one, that the Tokomak had literally millions of ships and sepoys they could expend in their wars. “And they’re burning their way through our defences.”

  She watched, grimly, as the enemy ships opened fire on the mines. There were too many mines for them to kill before it was too late, but it hardly mattered. The next wave of enemy ships would face fewer mines and the wave following that would face fewer still. And then the real offensive would begin, once the enemy had cleared a space to deploy. She knew she couldn’t allow them the chance to start sending through battleships and superdreadnaughts.

  Although, if they send them through one by one, we could blow them away piecemeal, she thought. And we have enough missiles to end them all before running out of ammunition.

  The last of the enemy icons vanished. There was a long pause, then another set of red icons materialised in the display. Hoshiko sensed, more than heard, a wave of dismay rippling through the CIC. It was like playing a combat simulator where the enemy had unlimited resources and absolutely no hesitation in unleashing a massive human wave attack, climbing atop their own bodies to get at their targets. The Tokomak just kept coming.

  No, she reminded herself. There are no Tokomak on those ships. Just ... expendable servants.

  She cursed under her breath as the enemy ships managed to unleash a salvo of missiles before they were wiped out. None of them posed a real threat - it looked as if the enemy ships hadn’t had time to do any targeting before they opened fire - but they were a problem. The seeker heads would lock onto something, distracting her gunners from their work. And the missiles seemed to be standard-issue, utterly unimproved. Further proof, if she’d needed it, that the Tokomak considered the first waves to be completely expendable.

  “Admiral,” Yolanda said. “Commodore Yu is requesting permission to unleash the alpha platforms.”

  “Denied,” Hoshiko said, curtly. She understood Yu’s concerns, but they hadn’t run out of mines yet. “Order him to keep holding them in reserve.”

  Another wave of enemy ships appeared on the display. One of them, incredibly unlucky even by the standards of a simultaneous transit, crashed into one of the previous wave of ships and both ships vanished from the display in a tearing explosion. Hoshiko hoped, as the mines swooped towards their new targets, that the blast had disrupted the enemy sensors. The mines were designed to be stealthy, but they weren’t cloaked.

  A pity the plan for self- replicating mines never got off the television screen, she thought, sourly. It would make the gravity point impregnable.

  Her lips twitched. The Solar Union had access to nearly a century of science-fiction writers speculating about what humans could do with advanced technology, long before the technology had been captured from the Horde, but not all of the ideas had proven feasible. Yet. There was an insane lunatic who thought it would be possible to build a Death Star, although Hoshiko suspected it would be a giant waste of resources. Why would anyone build a giant space station that could be destroyed by a single starfighter pilot? It was only a matter of time before someone figured out how to build starfighters.

  “The enemy ships are opening fire,” Yolanda said. “They’re targeting the alpha platforms.”

  “Raise Commodore Yu,” Hoshiko said. The enemy had forced her hand, damn them. “He is to clear the targeted alpha platforms to engage the enemy.”

  She sucked in her breath as a handful of platforms died, a moment before their comrades opened fire. The Tokomak tactics were unbelievably ruthless - she couldn’t imagine humans putting up with masters who were prepared to throw them into the fire in vast numbers just to gain a brief tactical advantage - but she had to admit they were working. Her defence plans were still workable, as far as she could tell, yet it was only a matter of time before the Tokomak cleared enough space to bring in the bigger ships. Her only real edge was that, so far, the Tokomak didn’t know how much damaged they’d done.

  Although they will have a very good idea, she admitted to herself. And it won’t be long before one of their ships survives long enough to cycle their jump drive and return to Mokpo.

  The fire and fury surrounding the gravity point steadily grew worse. Dozens of ships appeared, time and time again, some surviving long enough to orientate themselves and open fire. The minefields were nearly gone, save for a handful of mines at the very edge of the engagement zone; the automated platforms were taking a beating, even though she was trying to conserve as many of them as possible. It wouldn’t be long before she would have to authorise the fortresses to open fire, keeping her fleet in reserve. And that would wear her defences down too.

  At least we haven’t lost anyone, she thought. The enemy was tearing her automated defences apart, but they hadn’t managed to touch her manned facilities. No human has died yet.

  Another wave of enemy ships appeared, then doubled. Hoshiko blinked in surprise. A handful of ships had interpenetrated and vanished, of course, but ... for a moment, she couldn't understand what she was seeing. Had two groups of ships made transit within seconds? Had the enemy messed up the timing? Or ... a quarter of the newcomers simply vanished. It took her a moment to realise that they’d jumped back through the gravity point.

  Her terminal bleeped. “Admiral, this is Hoskins in Analysis.”

  “Go ahead,” Hoshiko said.

  “Our preliminary analysis suggests that there were two ships, physically linked together,” Hoskins said. “The first one jumped through the gravity point, taking the second ship with it; the second ship jumped back, as soon as it had a chance to evaluate the situation. There’d be no risk of interpenetration because the ships were effectively one ship.”

  “And they did it dozens of times,” Hoshiko said. “Damn it.”

  She bit down the urge to curse out loud as she realised the enemy had managed to get a message back through the gravity point. It was a neat trick. Simple, effective ... and completely unexpected. No one had thought about sending two ships through at once, not in thousands of years ... not unless the Tokomak had come up with the tactic, then kept it in reserve until it was needed. Whoever was on the other side was definitely no slouch.

  “And that means we can expect further attacks, targeted against our weak points,” she said, after a moment. “Can you see any way to counter the tactic?”

  “No, Admiral,” Hoskins admitted. “The second ship wouldn’t have to wait to recycle its jump drive. We simply couldn’t kill them all before it was too late.”

  Hoshiko nodded and closed the connection, then looked at Yolanda. “Contact the minelayers,” she said. She was all-too-aware that she was sending a number of men - and aliens - to their deaths. “Tell them to start deploying additional mines.”

  “Aye, Admiral.”

  ***

  Neola allowed herself a cold smile as the first reports - the first true reports - flowed into her display. The expendable ships had done better than she’d expected, clearing layer after layer of mines and weakening the enemy’s automated defences. They hadn't touched the fortresses, but she hadn't expected them to get anywhere near the heavier defences. There was no way to know - for
the moment - if the fortresses were truly real.

  But we have to assume they’re real, she reminded herself.

  “Order the next waves to continue the offensive,” she said, calmly. “And ready the main assault elements to jump once the gravity point is clear.”

  “Yes, Your Excellency.”

  ***

  Space around the gravity point boiled and seethed in a constant wave of explosions as ships erupted into existence, launched their missiles and died in a blaze of glory. Hoshiko nodded to herself at the grim confirmation that the enemy had indeed managed to get a message back through the gravity point, as if she’d doubted it. Their targeting wasn’t perfect, but it was vastly superior to their earlier attempts. They’d done most of the programming before their jump into the fire.

  “They’re targeting the fortresses,” Yolanda observed. “But with only a handful of missiles.”

  Hoshiko frowned. The enemy didn't seem to have hammers ... and without hammers, a lone missile or two was not going to take out a fortress. Even an antimatter-tipped missile wouldn’t be enough to do real harm. They wouldn’t even get through the point defence network. It made no sense.